The Penguins – “That Old Gray Mare….”

A little less than a month ago, I posted an article showing that last season’s opening night line-up was 30.0 years old while this season’s opening night’s line-up was projected to be 30.9 years of age, almost a full year older. The team was the third oldest team in the league last season.

Lo and behold, when the puck dropped the other night, the average age of our Pittsburgh Penguins’ line-up ended up being 30.9, just as projected.

As bad as that was, yesterday I read a notice from our Penguins top farm club, the Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) Penguins, that talked about how WBS Coach J.D. Forrest cut his training camp roster to 28, sending Jordan Frasca, Ty Glover, Dillon Hamaliuk, Lukas Svejkovsky, and Taylor Gauthier down a little deeper to the Penguins affiliate in the ECHL, the Wheeling Nailers.

The news of Frasca’s, Hamaliuk’s, Svejkovsky’s, and Gauthier’s demotions was a red flag. Frasca and Hamaliuk played great in the Prospects Challenge and Gauthier was the best Goalie in the preseason. I had to look deeper into this atrocity.

Farm teams are supposed to be stocked with prospects. Prospects are players that the team projects will eventually mature into NHL level players. They go there to learn how to play the game and get better.

The prime years of a Forward in the NHL ranges between 22 and 27. Defenseman and Goalies take a little longer to mature with 26 to about 32 being their prime years. Regardless of position, after 24 you really aren’t a prospect anymore. You are in your prime our older.

Therefore, I looked to see who was all left on the roster, it was shocking!

Prospects	Po	Hgt	Wgt	Age
Belliveau, Isaac	LD	74	179	20
Hayes, Avery	RW	70	175	21
Blomqvist, Joel	G	74	187	21
Poulin, Sam	C	74	213	22
Smith, Ty	LD	71	180	23
Lee, Justin	LD	72	195	23
Gruden, Jonathan	C	72	170	23
Houde, Sam	C	72	172	23
Puustinen, Valtteri	RW	69	183	23
St. Ivany, Jack	RD	75	195	24
Andonovski, Corey	RW	73	195	24
Jagger, Joshua	LW	75	210	24
Samorukov, Dmitri	LD	75	188	24
Has Beens/Never Was
Nylander, Alex	RW	73	192	25
Koppanen, Joona	LW	77	210	25
Filipe, Matt	LW	74	196	25
Pitlick, Rem	C	71	186	26
Rueschhoff, Austin	C	79	230	26
White, Colin	C	73	194	26
Johnstone, Marc	RW	72	181	27
Friedman, Mark	RD	71	185	27
Zohorna, Radim	C	78	235	27
Johnsson, Andreas	LW	70	195	28
Hinostroza, Vinnie	RW	70	180	29
Ouellet, Xavier	LD	72	200	30
Sparks, Garret	G	75	205	30
Hellberg, Magnus	G	78	220	32
Fedun, Taylor	RD	73	200	35

Fifteen of the 28 players on the WBS Penguins training camp roster are no longer really prospects but supposedly in their prime or past their prime, more than half. Actually, they are oxygen thieves stealing valuable ice time from kids who are just developing.

No wonder this team has not developed a prospect, they don’t value them. They want to stockpile their farm system with has-beens and never was s. The archaeologist mentality of their NHL level Coach, Mike Sullivan permeates all the way through their top farm club.

I have said this truism before and I am saying it again, inherent to the term coach is teacher. Unfortunately, the top 2 Coaches in this team don’t want to teach.

This Penguins team will continue its inexorable decline into a bottomless abyss until such time as the absolutely absurd protocols of burying true prospects so far out of the galaxy that even traveling through worm holes could not possibly get them back.

One alleged “expert” from another site tried to chide fans who are fed up with Sullivan’s “hatred of kids” (the alleged expert’s words not mine – I would have been far less kind) saying that Zohorna and Drew O’Connor were going to make the roster. First of all, Zohorna didn’t make the opening night roster. Furthermore, even if he had, Zohorna is 27 and O’Connor 25; they are not kids, they are in their prime.

Captain Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang…. They ain’t what they used to be and they can’t keep carrying this old gray mare.

It is 6 years past time for change. The system is broken and killing this team.

Way too many Pittsburghers call for Steelers’ Coach Mike Tomlin’s head while kissing the ground the Penguins’ Coach walks on. There is something wrong with this, big time.